1. Technical Field
This patent document generally relates to a system and method of placing telephone calls, and in particular relates to the automatic implementation of replace codes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Each country determines for itself a particular numbering plan for phone numbers. A numbering plan may be common to several countries, such as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), or may be unique to a particular country.
Many numbering plans also provide for toll-free numbers. Typically, a recipient of a call to a toll-free number pays the cost of the call for the tolls incurred within the numbering plan, but does not pay the costs for additional tolls, such as an international toll. Many callers, however, incorrectly assume that international tolls, such as tolls incurred for telephone calls placed from Europe to North America, will be covered by the recipient of the toll-free call. Thus, many toll-free numbers are not accepted by telecommunication carriers (both wire and wireless) when the toll-free number is placed from a different country of the recipient or from a different numbering plan of the recipient due to the telecommunication carriers' experience with callers refusing to pay the international portion of the call.
To resolve this problem, some numbering plans have implemented “replace codes” for the toll-free codes. In a NANP country, such as the United States, for example, the toll-free codes 800, 888, and 877 have corresponding replace codes 880, 881, and 882. When using a replace code, the caller pays the same international call charge as for a standard call to the United States. For example, if a caller in Germany attempts to place a call to a United States toll-free number 1-800-XXX-XXXX, the caller may use the replace code 880. The call to the number 1-880-XXX-XXXX is not blocked by the international carrier, and the caller pays a toll for an international call to the United States.
A caller may find it inconvenient to remember or even obtain corresponding replace codes for particular numbers. Furthermore, a caller may not even know if replace codes are available for a particular numbering plan of the country to which the caller is calling. Thus, a caller may spend a significant amount of time searching for the correct replace code for a call recipient's toll-free number or searching for the call recipient's direct dial number.
Finally, some carriers offer services to subscribers that automatically handle international calls to toll-free numbers. However, the processing to support these services are handled by the carriers, and the subscribers are typically charged a resultant processing fee or service fee.